我记得，我记得

曾经，在寒冷的新年初始,
沿一条不同路线去往英格兰,
我们停下，看到人们攥着数字牌
从站台冲下涌向熟悉的大门，
“喂，考文垂！”我叫嚷。“我在这里出生。”

我斜着身子探出老远，瞍寻某个标志
证明这仍是曾长久属于“我的”
那个小镇，但是发现我甚至弄不清
哪边是哪边。难道是在那些三轮车
停靠的地方，我们一年一度出发,

为了与家人共度年假？……哨声响起：
景物挪动。我坐回座位，盯着我的靴子。
“那就是，”朋友微笑，“你‘获得你根基’的地方？”
不，只是我童年未耗尽的地方，
我想反驳，只是我启程的地方：

到此刻我已将整个地方在脑子里清晰描画。
我们的花园，首先：在那里我不曾编造
关于花朵与果实的盲目的神话，
也没有什么老家伙讲诉与我。
在这里有我们那光辉的家，

可当我沮丧却从未向它寻过宽慰，
在这里小子们都有二头肌，姑娘们都有丰满的胸脯，
这里有他们滑稽的福特车，他们的农场，在那儿我可以
“真正的自我”。我指给你看，那儿，
那片蕨丛我从不哆嗦一声就敢坐下，

我曾下决心要消灭它；在那里她曾
仰面躺下，“一切变成一团燃烧的雾”。
还有，在那些办公间，我的打油诗
既没在钝秃的十点字模里印成铅字，也不曾被
市长的某位尊贵表亲诵读，

在那里他不曾打电话告诉过我爸爸
在我们面前，有可以望见的天赋─—
“你好像巴不得这地方去下地狱，”
朋友说，“从你的脸来看。”“噢，
我想不是这地方的错，”我说。

“无事，正如某事，总会在任何地方发生。”

作者 / [英国] 菲力普•拉金
翻译 / 舒丹丹

I Remember, I Remember

Coming up England by a different line
For once, early in the cold new year,
We stopped, and, watching men with number plates
Sprint down the platform to familiar gates,
“Why, Coventry!” I exclaimed. “I was born here.”

I leant far out, and squinnied for a sign
That this was still the town that had been ‘mine’
So long, but found I wasn’t even clear
Which side was which. From where those cycle-crates
Were standing, had we annually departed

For all those family hols? . . . A whistle went:
Things moved. I sat back, staring at my boots.
‘Was that,’ my friend smiled, ‘where you “have your roots”?’
No, only where my childhood was unspent,
I wanted to retort, just where I started:

By now I’ve got the whole place clearly charted.
Our garden, first: where I did not invent
Blinding theologies of flowers and fruits,
And wasn’t spoken to by an old hat.
And here we have that splendid family

I never ran to when I got depressed,
The boys all biceps and the girls all chest,
Their comic Ford, their farm where I could be
‘Really myself’. I’ll show you, come to that,
The bracken where I never trembling sat,

Determined to go through with it; where she
Lay back, and ‘all became a burning mist’.
And, in those offices, my doggerel
Was not set up in blunt ten-point, nor read
By a distinguished cousin of the mayor,

Who didn’t call and tell my father There
Before us, had we the gift to see ahead –
‘You look as though you wished the place in Hell,’
My friend said, ‘judging from your face.’ ‘Oh well,
I suppose it’s not the place’s fault,’ I said.’

Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.’

Philip Larkin

“我们一年一度出发， / 为了与家人共度年假”，这长久以来沿袭下来的习惯，早已演变为某种仪式。于是新年成为一个恰好的契机，让人们重回故地，去面对那些旧人旧事。

小镇记得你曾经的模样，即使有一天你回到这里，发现自己已经弄不清哪边是哪边，但你始终知道，这里是自己“童年未耗尽的地方”，也是自己“启程的地方”。故乡作为一种遥远的羁绊，仅此两个理由便已足够。

没有人拥有一个无坚不摧的故乡。一切变得不再确定，曾长久属于“你的”那个小镇，决意用它的面目全非来迎接你的今非昔比。你在得到，也在失去。所谓的“变化”，似乎只是为了维持某种微妙的平衡。

你热爱过它也痛恨过它，有时忍不住在两种感情之间摇摆不定。但是一年一度，你准会回到这里，毕竟那“不是这地方的错”。唯有看透了时间的伎俩，才能更轻松地接纳这一切。

荐诗 / 楚歌
2017/01/26

题图 / Emma Haworth